


The Healer Returns

by The_AU_Factory



Series: The Healer Returns [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Character of Color, Female Character of Color, Female Protagonist, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_AU_Factory/pseuds/The_AU_Factory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the world is set to end, Raphael makes a decision that might prove to be even more dangerous than desertion of her post.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Laying on of Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline wise, things are a bit wonky. Both Michael and Lucifer are already in their respective back up vessels (endless apologizes to Adam and Nick), and no major character after "Lucifer Rising" has bitten the dust.
> 
> \- Sue

You are not Michael, you are not Lucifer. And you are certainly not Gabriel.  
  
You are, however, as swift as them and just as relentless (and just as cruel).  
  
You, though?  
  
Just you, _only_ you have always felt clumsy with a weapon in your hands, but you make do.  
  
After all, you _must_. You have callouses now. Whatever vessel you take, you always have callouses.  
  
It's a... unique characteristic.  
  
And it's wrong. It's nearly a perversion of your perfect design.  
  
No living creature is unfeeling and an angel, an _archangel_ , is no exception.  
  
You're tired, so tired. And sad. So very, very, _very_ sad.

And it's in the deepest, most pitiful sense of the word.  
  
Lucifer, struck down.  
  
Gabriel, a runaway (and a refugee, but now a god).  
  
And Michael. Poor, sweet, foolish Michael.  
  
His obedience will be the end of all of you.  
  
You don't fear Death.  
  
You don't fear dying.  
  
What you fear is loneliness.  
  
Separation.  
  
Emptiness.  
  
Your spirit is as broken as your family and perhaps that's what does it.  
  
You look out into the vastness of all that your Father has created.  
  
The sun, the stars, _all_ the stars.  
  
You don't remember a moment that they weren't there, but you haven't looked up in so long.  
  
You stop. You marvel.  
  
You allow your sword to slip through your fingers.  
  
A single sound has never before been so loud (not since He was nailed to the Cross, at least) and it echoes through the sky like thunder.  
  
A warning. A proclamation. Maybe even a plea.  
  
Or perhaps, all three.  
  
As he quietly tends to the Garden, Joshua smiles.  
  
In an almost forgotten plot of soil, a small rue bush begins to flower. The Healer has returned.  
  
Elsewhere, three beings stop and raise their heads to the sky.  
  
A trickster.  
  
A soldier.  
  
And one who was once so dearly loved.  
  
You're still looking at the stars.  
  
"Father, let me not fail," you dare to pray.  
  
You don't wait for a sign.  
  
You unfurl your wings and you fly.  
  
As always, there's much work to be done.


	2. Beautiful Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first step to beginning a new path is literally just that: a step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon is now irrelevant, but prior knowledge of characters and their motives would be a handy thing to have before reading.
> 
> \- Sue

It's easier to move through the world in certain vessels more so than others.  
  
Man is many things: fearful, ignorant, greedy, suspicious.  
  
Raphael's current vessel is retired. It's time to begin anew.  
  
Her face is stern and her suit is armor of a sort, but her touch remains soft. Her feet are in sensible shoes and she moves with purpose.  
  
She's unarmed, but not powerless.  
  
Zachariah comes to her with fury darkening his already mildly unpleasant features.  
  
Raphael hears his words as she absently flexes her fingers. Zachariah continues until a distant peal of thunder rattles his borrowed bones.  
  
He shifts to recollect himself and displays what he seems to believe is a genuine act of concern.  
  
What he forgets is that Raphael's brothers are Lucifer and Gabriel.  
  
"If you leave-"  
  
"I will return."  
  
"But-"  
  
A magnificent but soundless bolt of lightning suddenly cleaves a path through the clouds overhead.

This Zachariah's only warning.  
  
The air remains charged and the clouds grow heavy with rain.  
  
Raphael looks at him flatly until he leaves her sight.  
  
Zachariah believes himself to be _important_. His presumptuous nature is not nearly as grating as his poorly disguised ambition.  
  
Raphael clears this nuisance from her mind and goes to the first battlefield that tugs at her Grace.  
  
She is concealed.  
  
A lesson that was taught to her at the tip of a blade by Lucifer himself. Michael lacked the imagination for such methods.  
  
She counts the wounded, the dead, the dying then announces her presence with a vicious clap of thunder that only an archangel could withstand.  
  
Once her brothers and sisters return to their feet, disoriented, confused, expecting judgment, condemnation, she wills herself to the center of the field.  
  
They're all so young and she estimates that there are at least 30 of them present. They don't know whether to sheath their swords or fall to their knees, but they look frightened.  
  
And rightly so.  
  
The one nearest to her is trembling.  
  
Raphael's face is expressionless, but her eyes are kind. "All of you that are able bodied enough, collect the dead then return to your duties," she orders as the wind easily carries her voice. "Anyone that bars you entrance back into Heaven will answer to me. This," she says as she gestures to the blood spilled around her, "this is not why our Father created us. When the time comes for many hands to be needed, we can only curse ourselves for the fate that we will suffer. Go home and go in peace."  
  
They stare at her uncomprehendingly until it starts to rain and that seems to startle them out of their shared stupor.  
  
Raphael can do nothing for the dead, but she coaxes those under the shadow of Death back to the land of the living.  
  
He pauses when she physically stills his pale, skeletal hand and the angel bleeding out on the ground between them is forgotten as he looks at her.  
  
She stares back unflinchingly and conviction crushes the fear threatening to rise from the pit of her stomach. "They are mine. _All_ of them."  
  
Her wings open then flare in warning and lightning drips from them to pool in her hands.  
  
Unarmed, but not powerless.  
  
Death raises an eyebrow then opens his umbrella. It's an inkblot against the sky. "Today, so it would seem," he drawls  
  
He walks away and Raphael quickly sparks the Grace of all those that remain. Death is not fickle, but Raphael won't take that risk.

Once she is alone, she allows the rain to wash the blood off her hands.  
  
She allows it to soak through her clothes and fill her shoes.  
  
Then, she shakes.  
  
She shakes and not with exhaustion or fear.  
  
She shakes with joy.  
  
At the edge of the clearing near the start of a forest, a man standing under a cotton candy blue umbrella watches this strange scene.  
  
He remains unseen by her because he wishes to be unseen. As a matter of fact, if one looked, it would seem that he was never there at all.  
  
Except for the Snickers wrapper that he leaves behind.  
  
The muted glimmer of it catches Raphael's eye.  
  
She gently picks it up then carefully folds it and puts it in her breast pocket of her jacket.  
  
She doesn't speak his name, but her Grace reaches for his and the gulf between them sears her with its coldness.  
  
Her tears are silent and bitter, but the rain is sweet.


	3. The Watchers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the only witnesses to reconciliation are the stars.

She knows that she's being observed. She's sure of it.  
  
Just beyond Raphael's grasp is someone that she aches to touch and it's enough to drive her insane.  
  
However, this is something that even her hands can't heal, so she does what she is able to.  
  
She leaves candy. Sweets, trinkets.  
  
 _Offerings._  
  
Of all of her sins, blasphemy will probably be the kindest of them.  
  
When she returns, all that's left are empty wrappers.  
  
She begins to collect them, to weave them. And she does this without the slightest reason as to why.  
  
This goes on for weeks. Many weeks.  
  
Raphael begins to not mind and has developed something of a sweet tooth herself.  
  
It just so happens that today is not a good day, though.  
  
The level of carnage that she has seen is more than enough to make even her weary. It takes a maelstorm of a downpour to wash the blood from her hands, her face, her body.  
  
It's enough to strip the flesh off of bones, but Raphael just tips her head up and accepts the elements until her skin feels numb.  
  
There's still so much blood.  
  
She bows her head then puts her hands to her face.  
  
They won't stop. They won't stop killing each other.  
  
A soft touch startles her out of her thoughts and she turns to face the one that has disturbed her.  
  
The sky clears and the clouds part to reveal Gabriel.  
  
Raphael doesn't dare to breathe.  
  
Gabriel slowly tilts his head and all she can do is not will herself to reach out and touch his face.  
  
Always one to surprise others, Gabriel does just that.  
  
Unable to deny herself any longer and emboldened by physical contact, Raphael timidly reaches out with her Grace.  
  
Gabriel pauses, freezes, and then looks at her sharply.  
  
 _Please, please._  
  
She puts her hands over his then nudges at his forehead with her nose.  
  
 _Please._  
  
Gabriel closes his eyes and Raphael lets out a soft, breathless noise as they fill and relearn all those small, sad, secret places within each other.  
  
He holds her as desperately as she holds him then he speaks. "They're going to kill you, they're going to _kill_ you," he murmurs as eons of emotions make his words sink faster than stones.  
  
Raphael bends to smile against Gabriel's cheek then breathes him in deeply.  
  
He still smells of clovers and spices and something so wild that it makes her dizzy. "Let them."  
  
When Gabriel abruptly starts, she holds him tighter then puts her lips to his ear. "I just wanted to see all of you one last time and if this is indeed the last time, so be it," she lightly says. "Whatever happens, _whatever_ happens, swear to me that you'll face neither of them because if you die, I'll bring the sky down on all of us," Raphael swears.  
  
Gabriel pulls back then looks up at her with wide eyes and laughs shakily at the enormity of her words. "Easy there, Firestarter!"  
  
She gently cups his face then looks at him pleadingly. "Swear to me, Gabriel."  
  
 **Please.**  
  
His expression is uncharacteristically solemn, but there's that old love and awe and wonder in his eyes. "I swear on the Throne that those two won't see as much as a single feather of me, sis," he promises.  
  
Raphael's heart unclenches, but then she lets out a pained sound that would have otherwise been inaudible if Gabriel wasn't in her arms.  
  
He chuckles. "Go ahead and do your Florence Nightingale thing."  
  
She breathes him in as deeply as she can then takes flight.  
  
This time, Gabriel is the one that watches her leave, but it's not with sadness.  
  
And it's certainly not forever.  
  
The Snickers wrapper in Raphael's breast pocket has been replaced with one of his central feathers.  
  
"Good luck, kiddo," Gabriel softy says.


	4. A Tempest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all storms herald destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I see an angel's Grace as a nearly separate entity, a symbiotic of sorts, so it's described as such.
> 
> \- Sue

There is a Grace in the definition of suffering. This anguish is the kind that human ears aren't attuned to.

It's Raphael's duty to tend to those that require her help, so she takes flight.

Just as she's about to pinpoint the location of this Grace, something that she thought impossible happens.  
  
She finds herself ripped out of the sky and plummeting to the earth like a bolt of lightning.  
  
She's being summoned. Her true name has been spoken and she'll soon be tethered.  
  
The sky roars at the insolence of this violation. Raphael unleashes a storm that will baffle meteorologists for years to come.  
  
The house she finds herself in is decrepit and uninhabited.  
  
She draws her wings close to her and in light of her agitated state, sparks dance through the room.  
  
For whatever reason, more than likely a foolish one, she is now trapped in a ring of holy fire.  
  
Raphael can still hear that awful screaming and she stretches her Grace as far as she's able.

She'll deal with whatever nonsense this is then resume her journey.

"If you found yourself in need of me," she says as she turns to face Castiel with an impassive expression, "it would have done you better to have simply called my name."  
  
The existence of Dean Winchester is ignored and Castiel seems surprised to find himself being addressed. "After Gabriel, we've decided to take certain precautions. And you _did_ kill me," Castiel adds flatly.  
  
Raphael doesn't quite sigh, but the hurricane outside subsides.

Slightly.  
  
"I apologize," she says carefully.  
  
Castiel blinks at her owlishly then looks elsewhere because it would be undignified to stare. The last thing he ever expected from an archangel was an apology. Especially a genuine one.  
  
"Things were not as they should have been" Raphael begins, "but I'm trying to correct that by--"  
  
"By _what_? By starting the _Apocalypse?_ " Dean Winchester asks incredulously.

Raphael doesn't spare him a glance. She cannot reach past the flames to strike him down for his insolence, but she does the next best thing.

Dean Winchester glares at her venomously when he finds himself struck mute.  
  
After that nuisance is silenced, Raphael looks at Castiel imploringly. "You are hindering me from doing what I was _created_ to do," she tells in exasperation as she shifts her wings in impatience. "Release me and you have gained a powerful ally. Leave me here and countless lives will be lost, Castiel. Enough of us have died," Raphael says as her calm begins to fray. "Release me."

Two nearly insignificant words, but Castiel shields Dean Winchester as they're pelted with glass and rain.

The house itself groans like it's about to come crashing down around them.  
  
" _Y_ ou don't hear them. You don't hear our brethren dying and screaming and begging for death or oblivion."

Raphael's false projection of calm is betrayed by the maelstorm  
  
"Release me," she repeats in a clipped tone. Her wings begin to unfold in the cramped space available.

Castiel takes a cautious step back and keeps a hand on Dean's arm.  
  
Before the situation can escalate. Raphael and the flames are suddenly doused with a blast of water so freezing that it chills her Grace.

The storm raging inside abruptly departs.  
  
Gabriel offers her a steadying hand and she declines, but accepts his offering of an embrace. She hides her face in his hair and breathes him in deeply to stay her hand.  
  
He keeps Castiel and Dean silent and where they stand with nothing but the weight of his stare. In this moment, it's hard to forget the fact that like Raphael, Gabriel is an archangel as well.  
  
"I've seen some stupid things in my life, I've _done_ some stupid things in my life, but you two knuckleheads either just created a new high or a new low," he says casually with an unamused twist of his lips.  
  
Castiel is wise enough to say nothing and Dean still can't say anything, small mercies, but the angel still places himself in front of the man without hesitation.  
  
Gabriel's eyes narrow. "Go ahead, sis. It's about time I told the rugrats a story."  
  
Raphael's person is dried with a snap of her fingers then she exits the house.

She locates the injured Grace and finds herself face to face with the most wayward of her brethren.

Lucifer quirks an eyebrow. "Raphael," he says in greeting.

"You're a fool," she snaps as she walks over to him. "A fool and so am I," Raphael says angrily.

Michael is to defeat their brother and hurl him back into an endless pit of darkness and despair, but she refuses to have any part in this narrative.

"I--"

"Shut up," Raphael orders. She puts her hands to his pock marked face and the blemishes begin to fade.

He's healing slower than she would like and she's losing energy rapidly, but she will see this task through.

Raphael's legs shake as she nears exhaustion and her vision begins to blur, but she will complete this.

"Raphael," Lucifer says in concern.

" _Shut up_ ," she chokes out. "I'm," she takes a labored breath, "I'm nearly finished."

"It's enough, that's _enough_." He tears her hands away from his face and catches her when her legs give out. "Why?" Lucifer asks in bewilderment. "Why _now_ , Raphael?" he asks as he holds her.

"Father wasn't wrong, but I won't have you die to appease anyone," she answers wearily. "We're killing each other and it's all for nothing. What's the point of Paradise on this wretched planet if there will be so few of us left?" she says bitterly

"This was not the greeting I was expecting," Lucifer confesses.

Raphael's soft laugh is scattered by thunder.

"I was going to asks where your allegiance lies, but after what you just did..."

For the first time since his Fall, Lucifer feels uncertain.

"Why?" he repeats.

She can't because if he knows, if she tells him, it might either be his salvation or damn them both.

The edges of his Grace are no longer jagged and tattered and even his wings, those magnificent wings, are restored.

Her own Grace pulses weakly and Lucifer withdraws from her, but keeps her close.

Their wings brush and Raphael exhales so deeply that the clouds are stirred.

Lucifer makes an amused noise. "What a curious creature you've become in my absence."

Raphael says nothing. She says nothing because she has fallen asleep in the arms of the Morning Star.

Lucifer marvels at this new founded naivety then sighs. "What have you done to put yourself in such a state, little sister?" he murmurs.

He carries her as gently as he remembers how to then finds her a comfortable, inconspicuous place to rest.

Afterwards, he sits at her bedside and gazes at her fondly.

Despite everything, it's comforting to see that Raphael is still so soft hearted.

It's no surprise when Gabriel is suddenly at his shoulder and neither of them say anything for a while.

Raphael inhales deeply and both of them reach out to soothe her.

Now, it's only natural that Gabriel draws nearer to Lucifer.

Neither of them say anything, but Lucifer opens his wings to cradle his siblings.

When Raphael awakens, only Gabriel is present.

She sits up slowly then looks at him searchingly.

He gives her a small, slightly sad smile then gently presses Lucifer's feather into her hand.

She looks back at Gabriel for an answer, but he simply continues to smile.

Raphael carefully puts it in her breast pocket besides Gabriel's feather then stands.

There's still much work to be done.

She brushes Gabriel's cheek and he exhales gustily then holds her hand to his face.

Raphael finally smiles.

Outside, the storm has finally broken.


	5. Still Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jealousy blooms best unaided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I consider this chapter a re-imagining of "Hammer of the Gods," but with angels at the forefront.

The fighting has lessened but Raphael has no hopes for a ceasefire.

For whatever reason, Lucifer has temporarily stilled his hand. She's not foolish enough to think herself the cause, but...

Raphael circles the earth twice then sits.

This is...strange. She's only had to dispel minor skirmishes, which is good, but unusual.

Raphael gnaws on a Twizzler absently as she thinks.

A sudden, stiff wind scatters her thoughts. And a few of her feathers.

Gabriel laughs at the indignant expression on her face then sits down beside her. He kicks his feet then curls into her side as if he never left.

"Pest," Raphael says fondly as she drapes a wing over him.

The Grand Canyon is dark and shapeless as it stretches out before them.

She shifts restlessly and Gabriel opens a bag of Skittles then freezes.

His wings flare and Raphael is suddenly left with nothing but a king sized bag of chocolate flavored Skittles.

She raises an eyebrow then pokes at the bag curiously. Chocolate flavored Skittles...

When Gabriel returns, she's at the bottom of her tenth bag and doesn't even attempt to look guilty.

They're interesting and she's about to tell him as much when she feels a familiar chill clinging to him.

Raphael is on her feet and Gabriel is shrugging her off before she even touches him.

"What--"

"I'm okay," he says stubbornly despite the fact that he's shaking.

The sky rumbles unhappily and Gabriel rolls his eyes then squirms as he allows Raphael to examine him. "I said--"

"Be silent and be _still_ ," she snarls as thunder gives her words menace.

She finds no physical wounds, but the chill shrouding Gabriel makes her fingertips burn.

 _Lucifer_.

Gabriel doesn't meet her eyes. "Winchesters, old friends. The venue was pretty swanky and Baldur is still a dick," he says vaguely.

Raphael nods stiffly then an uneasy silence falls between them.

The Skittles sit untouched and she tries to crush the jealousy that rises up from the pit of her stomach.

In the absence of a mission, a goal, a _family_ , it has festered and flowered and the fruit it bears is bitter.

Raphael can eat no more of it.

Gabriel is only aware of her silence and seeks to fill it. "Look--"

"After Father, after Michael, he loved you best,"

He rears back from her as if struck, but she continues. "Michael doesn't even speak to me anymore. Nor do the others."

The clouds above them are a matted, faded gray.

"He requires my obedience, the rest require my authority." Raphael looks down at the callouses on her hands. "After Lucifer, after you," she says haltingly, "he clung to me as if I would have followed you were he to let me go."

Gabriel can only give her his silence because there isn't a Hallmark card for this.

"I stayed and my punishment was watching him withdraw from the Host," Raphael says without bitterness. "They've forgotten what he looks like."

She suddenly laughs and there's a sob hidden in the rough sound. "I'm tired, Gabriel."

The air feels heavy and both of them bow their heads under the weight of it.

His wing brushes hers tentatively and Raphael closes her eyes then surrenders herself to his embrace.

It's not an apology.

This is a battle with no victor, only shared scars.


	6. Hallowed Be My name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a mission statement of a sort.

Her actions don't go unnoticed.

They return to her like the tide, like the Flood.

Scattered throughout the Host, her garrison rises.

Scattered throughout the Host, her garrison returns to her.

They lay their swords at her feet and one voice with a million tongues sings _halleluiah_.

She touches their faces then breathes her lightning into their mouths and they spark then they sing.

They _sing_.

Raphael laughs in the face of Zachariah's impotent fury. He speaks words that are meant to cut her, but he is a gnat beating its wings against a hurricane. 

Her army of healers descend from Heaven like a fleet of stars and they burn with her love.

She falls with them and when she meets Gabriel that day, he looks completely bewildered as she kisses his face then sets a hand woven crown of candy wrappers on his head.

The lollipop in his mouth falls to the floor and its shiny, red shell shatters. "You have gone full cray," he informs her in disbelief.

Raphael just laughs and rather loudly.

Some patrons of the diner turn to smile at them uncertainly.

Gabriel sinks down into the booth and covers his face with his menu.

Raphael orders an almost sickeningly amount of blueberry pancakes and Gabriel has all of the dessert menu in front of him.

They eat in a companionable silence, but he keeps on glancing at her.

"Either speak or stop gawking," Raphael says as she neatly cuts into her pancakes.

"Michael hitched a vessel."

The world stops then narrows down to a small diner in Nowhere Land, Wisconsin.

"John Winchester made a small shop in Windom, Minnesota and wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, Adam Milligan was born September 29, 1990. And if I remember correctly, he was one of yours," Gabriel quietly adds.

Raphael nods and suddenly has no appetite.

Adam was set to become a doctor, a _healer_.

Time is allowed to resume, but the sun is blotted out by dark, heavy clouds.

Gabriel sighs. "You can't put a bandage over this then pretend that everything is going to be okay, sis. Lucifer already raised Death and the rest of the Horsemen are more than eager to play their parts. This is the Apocalypse, Raphael. If you have an actual plan, if you _ever_ had an actual plan, now would be a good time to share with the rest of the class."

Raphael clenches her fists.

Gabriel sighs again. "I just don't want to see you get hurt, sis. Michael has a vessel now and that means that he can hurt either of us as much as he think he should,” he reminds her. “Lucifer is one thing, the soft bastard, but Michael thinks that what he's doing is _just_ ," Gabriel says as he emphasizes the last word. "We've already lost so much and I just got you back. I'm not ready to loose anyone else."

Raphael exhales then folds her hands in her lap. "I'm a healer."

Gabriel nods slowly then tilts his head and motions for her to continue.

"I thought I knew what this role would demands of me, but it's not until now that I truly understand. I think," Raphael wrings her fingers out of her brother's sight, "I think we have more free will than we realize. If not free will, then some kind of choice."

Gabriel's mouth falls open then he starts to smile.

This gives Raphael the courage to continue. "If our brothers are to do battle, I'll be right there. Not beside them or behind them, but between them. To destroy each other, they'll have to destroy me first because if I fail, I don't want to live to see what becomes of our family, Gabriel,” she laments softly. “This world and all the others can burn. I used to think that they should, but I suppose that they should have the chance to prove themselves," Raphael says in an overly solemn, mocking tone.

Gabriel stands then walks over to Raphael's side of the booth and slides in beside her.

She looks uncertain and a little afraid until he wraps his arms around her.

Raphael holds him as close to her chest as humanely possible then envelopes him in her wings. "No matter what happens, don't interfere and never doubt that I have and will always love you, brother.

Gabriel says nothing and just holds onto her tighter.

Good byes aren’t his forte and Raphael was always too stubborn to leave when she should, so he supposes this is it.

Looking at their table, at the variety of food Raphael has around her, he realizes that this _is_ it.

Some of these dishes aren’t even served on this hemisphere, let alone this planet.

This is her last meal, this is his baby sister’s last meal and Gabriel didn’t even know.

“C’mon, you,” he says as he takes her hand. “There’s this dessert pizza place in Chicago where the crust tastes like manna from Dad’s own bakery.”

Raphael laughs and Gabriel’s mind races as he tries to figure out how to save her short of ripping her Grace from her chest.


End file.
